National Republicans lost badly because they haven’t lost well. Instead of reflecting on their party’s deficiencies after the 2008 drubbing, they treated our president as a fluke, then a fraud, then a patsy. America didn’t like it.

Within a decade, let’s reduce the American work week to 32 hours, and bring millions back into the work force. The president’s political opponents want smaller government. Can they campaign against three-day weekends?

Presidential candidates focus now on “swing states.” That term barely existed 25 years ago. Campaigns have consequences. The president has fewer friends and favors he can call on in those uncontested red states.